


Borrowed Time

by sailingofftoNeverland (with_hearts_and_farts)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Science Fiction, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 21:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3784189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/with_hearts_and_farts/pseuds/sailingofftoNeverland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Louis only had 17 minutes left of charge before his battery would shut down on him, but he honestly didn’t feel like powering down right now, he had too much stuff that he needed to do before his time expired. He would just bother Zayn to transfer him a few hours like he always did."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Time

**Author's Note:**

> In this alternative universe, humans get their energy by powering down, similar to a computer. Dreams are not a common occurrence.

Louis only had 17 minutes left of charge before his battery would shut down on him, but he honestly didn’t feel like powering down right now, he had too much stuff that he needed to do before his time expired. He grabbed his jacket and ran out the door across the street to the tea shop. Pulling open the door quickly, a small chime ringing in the background notifying the owner that someone has entered. Louis looked around the mostly empty shop, nodding to one of the usual older lady that would always sit by the window on sunnier days like this.  
“Good morning Mrs. Harper, do you know if the boys are here?” he questioned showing his encouraging smile at her.  
“Oh good morning Louis! It’s so nice to see you today, how have you been boy? It’s been about a week since I saw you last, how is-” Louis looked down at his arm, 12 minutes flashed in red across his wrist.  
“Mrs. Harper, I would love to talk but I’ve got a bit of a deadline,” he quickly held out his wrist, Mrs. Harper let out a small gasp when she noticed his time, “so is Harry or Zayn here at the moment?”  
“Dear boy, you know you should not let it get that low!” the worried lady spoke to Louis as he ran around the corner to the back of the shop. Just in time to see Zayn stepping in through the back door, pulling his hair back into a low ponytail.  
“Zayn! Mate, you got a couple hours you could spare?” Louis asked with a hint of panic to his voice, Mrs. Harper was right he really shouldn’t let his time run that low.  
“I love how thats so often the first thing you say to me most mornings, I’m fine thanks for asking, not like I might need those hours for anything.” the dark haired boy said rolling his eyes and stretching out his hand for Louis to grab onto. Zayn held up Louis’s arm, looking at his wrist, 10 minutes flashed red.  
“I should just let you power down one of these days, just watch you as you crash.” he said with a chuckle, “I mean when was the last time you ever really slept?” Zayn held on to Louis wrist, looked into the shorter boys eyes, both boys eyes glazed over for a moment and everything went black. Seconds later, once the transfer is complete they break eye contact, blinking until their vision is returned.  
“Thanks Zayner, but that is the closest that I like to get to powering down.” he looks down at his wrist to see 3 hours and 8 minutes flash in blue and lets out a small sigh. Someone knocks on the back door and Zayn opens it without checking to see who it is first. Harry walks in carry pastries and cakes for the shop.  
“I still don’t understand what you have against powering down?” Zayn asks Louis who is now helping Harry unpack the goods, mostly just so he can grab a cookie without Harry noticing.  
“Well, its because he is afraid of the dark, isn’t it?” Harry says simply as he smacks Zayn’s hand away from the cookie he is trying to steal. Louis picks up the denied cookie and stuffs it in his mouth before he can reply.  
“ I just don’t wanna miss any of the action.” He wipes away the crumbs from his mouth and considers grabbing another before Harry catches him.  
“What action?” Zayn asked motioning around the shop. “It’s 9 o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday! The only reason I’m up is because my charger wouldn’t let me sleep anymore.” He looked down at his wrist. “Oh I forgot I gave you time, now I can get a good nap in, I’ll be up stairs.” Opening the door behind the counter that read “ Employees only!” and written in messy letters underneath “and Louis! (suckas)” Even though Louis was basically worked there anyway.  
“You gave him some of your hours?” Harry questioned.  
“He had like 10 minutes left, you wanted me to let him crash?” Harry turned to look at Louis as Zayn escaped up the stairs to his and Harry’s shared apartment.  
“Look Haz, its not that big of a deal, I just have a lot to do today, and I wasn’t able to sleep last night and-”  
Harry listened nodding and then lightly smacked the other boy on the face.  
“You have to power down tonight, Zayn and I will personally make sure you do.” he said pointing his finger at him.  
“What about the bar? You are going to close it down just to make sure I sleep?” Louis said rolling his eyes. At night, Harry and Zayn opened the tea shop as a bar, as a result, many different kinds of people passed through the shop during the hours it was open. Louis loved hanging out there, talking to them all, making friends. Getting hours from strangers was one of his favorite past times, how many hours could you get from just one? Once he got an extremely drunk man to give him 11 out of his 12 hours.  
“It’s a tuesday night, closing one night isn’t going to put us that much in the hole.” Harry said with a shrug, “ Plus, can you even recall the last time you charged the proper way was?”  
Louis paused for a second.  
“It was like four nights ago,”  
“And how long did you sleep for?”  
“ less than 5 hours.” Louis mumbled.  
“Louis you can’t keep doing this, it isn’t healthy, if you don’t power down at least every two days, it can cause some serious damage to your system.”  
“Okay, I’ll sleep tonight, and you guys can watch me, you happy now.” he kicked at nothing on the floor, grabbed a bottle of juice from the counter and ran to the door and up the stairs before Harry could say anything else on the matter.

Harry pulled out his phone and dialed a number.  
“Hey, it’s me.”  
The voice on the other end chuckled, “Your name pops up on my phone when you call… I know it’s you.”  
“Right,” Harry paused thinking through what he was calling for, “Can we bring him in tonight? He agreed he would power down tonight so I figured…” he trailed off.  
“Yeah, of course, let me ask my boss,” the voice paused, “well he isn’t my boss, more like the man in charge, so I guess my boss.” the boy on the other end rambled on, Harry giggled into his phone.  
“Well whoever he is, think we can meet with him tonight?”  
“For sure, I’ll set it up, make sure he only has one hour on his time clock when he comes in, we don’t want to have to stay up all night waiting for his time to expire.”  
“Will do.” Harry replied.  
“And Harry, you are welcomed to stay while we run our test on him.” the boy on the other end added, sounding a bit nervous.  
“Yeah? I think I will then.” Harry smiled into his phone.  
“Alright, awesome, see you tonight.” the boy stuttered.  
“Niall, what time tonight?”  
“oh , right, be here at 9.”  
“Got it.” Harry hung up his phone.  
“Mrs. Harper!” Harry sung across the shop. The older lady turned from her post at the window. “I’m going to run up stairs for a bit, could you hold down shop while I’m gone? I’ve got a few treats back here with your name on them.”  
Mrs. Harper smiled, “Of course, love. If anyone comes round I’ll make sure to tell them to help themselves to the register.”  
“The code to get in it is 1390.” Harry added with a wink. 

Louis was showering when Harry got up stairs, so he went to Zayn’s room and knocked quickly before opening the door. Zayn was sleeping on the bed, so Harry flicked his ear until he woke up. Zayn opened his eyes, they were glossed over for a second before Zayn blinked them away.  
“Oi!”  
“Zayn, I scheduled the testing appointment, its for tonight.”  
“Testing appointment?” the previously sleeping boy rubbed his ear and checked his wrist.  
“For Louis, his sleep test.” Zayn nodded his head and mumbled something. “He is going to need us there, think its alright to close the bar tonight?”  
“yeah yeah, whatever you say boss.” Zayn said closing his eyes again, Harry slapped him on his bum before leaving the already half asleep man. 

Louis breathed deeply in the shower, taking his time under the hot water, because it wouldn’t be his water bill that it’s charged too. He rested his head on the shower wall, and watched as the water from the shower rushed down the drain. Louis had learned long ago that if he acted like his whole life was just a game, acted like he didn’t care that he only had 5 minutes left on his clock, that people wouldn’t see how actually terrified it made him. He turned the water off and hopped out of the shower, maybe tonight it will be nice to power down and let his brain restart. He grabbed some clothes off the floor, a shirt that looked like it belonged to Zayn, and pants that he knew must be Harry’s and then went downstairs to see if he could find something more to eat.

Harry and Mrs. Harper were talking and nibbling on one of the cakes on the counter when he came down.  
“Louis would you put on some more hot water for us?” Louis nodded his head, and put the kettle on the stove without complaining only because Mrs. Harper had asked.  
“So what are we doing tonight?”  
“Besides making you power down? I figured you me and Zayn could go grab a drink with my friend Niall.”  
“Oi, is this that Irish one you’ve been babbling about for the past few weeks?”  
“I do not babble.” Harry mutters.  
“You do, but its sweet.” Mrs. Harper says in agreement with Louis.  
“Anyway,” Harry says throwing a small piece of the cake at Mrs. Harper, who just laughs at the young man. “We have to pick Niall up at his work around 9, is that okay?”  
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be?” Louis replys, taking the tea kettle off the stove and pouring himself some hot water. 

The day passed by and as Louis’s borrowed three hours began to run out, Harry made sure to only give him enough hours to make til 10 o’clock. By the time 9 rolled around Louis had worked up a plan to get Harry drunk and distracted by Niall that he wouldn’t remember that Louis was supposed to power down tonight.  
“Let’s go!” Harry yelled at Louis who was pulling on his shoes.  
“Calm down, its not the boy will be upset if we are 5 minutes late.”  
“He may not be, but his doctor friend might.” Harry whispered to Zayn while Louis grabbed his coat. They took a cab, and Harry made the driver pull into the parking lot at the back of a random building.  
“This isn’t questionable at all Harry, where did you say this guy works?” Louis asked, as Harry paid the driver, and they walked in through the back door. Zayn winked at Louis, while Harry picked up his phone to tell Niall they were here. They had walked into a place that reminded Louis of a waiting area at a doctors office.  
“Is your mate a doctor or something? If so, marry the fellow so we can be rich.” Louis elbowed Zayn and wiggled his eyebrows. Zayn laughed a bit too loud considering where they were.  
“We are here.” Louis heard Harry say into the phone and then hung up. About a minute later, a blonde head popped out from one of the many doors, a large smile appear across his face and he walked out.  
“Hi, I’m Niall.” he said shaking Louis and Zayn’s hand. His smile brightened even more when Harry put his hand out too, mocking him and saying “ Nice to meet, you, Niall did you say it was?” Niall shot out his tongue at the boy.  
“Well aren’t you two just the cutest.” Louis said sarcastically. The two boys giggled for a moment.  
“Well, why don’t you come on back, and I’ll show you guys around really quick.” Niall reached for the door he had just come through.  
“Yeah alright.” Harry said walking through, the other two boys following close behind him.  
“So Niall, what do you do…?” Louis said as the walked down a long hallway taking turns here and there, Louis already felt very lost. Niall glanced backward at Harry and then looked at Louis.  
“I work as a research student for the University which partnered with this clinic.”  
“Niall works very closely with one of the doctors here, they are discovering some great research.” Harry grins as Niall blushes.  
“Yeah, well. I’ve known the guy for many years so it was really a no brainer when he asked me to do research with him.”  
“So what is it that you research?” They got to a door that Niall unlocked and welcomed them inside. Louis paused to read the writing on the glass door.  
Dr. Liam Payne M.D.  
Sleep Disorders Clinic  
Louis stopped walking, his breath caught in his throat.  
“Harry, why are we here?” Panic filled his voice. “You tricked me! Zayn did you know about this?” Zayn closed the door to the office behind him and stood by it, blocking it in case Louis tried to make a run for it.  
“Louis, there is no reason to freak out. Remember we talked about you going to sleep tonight.” Harry said in a calm voice. Louis looked down at his wrist 45 minutes until he was out of time.  
“You did trick me! Why are we here, I was going to sleep tonight.” Niall stepped into another room saying he would be back in a minute.  
“We have been talking about it for some time and we think it wouldn’t hurt to seek some professional help, you know?” Zayn said, looking down at his shoes because he felt bad for tricking his best mate. Niall stepped back out with a clipboard in his hands, another man following close behind him.  
“Hello, I’m Dr. Payne” He said sticking out his hand for the boys to shake. Louis refused.  
“Dr. Payne… really. Dr. Payne. Why on earth did you become a doctor with a name like that. Truly the worst career choice. Honestly do you get-” Dr. Payne cut him off with a serious look.  
“You can call me Liam, if you’d like.” The doctor didn’t look much older than Louis himself, he looked as though he had just started being able to grow a beard, and he looked very fit, nothing like most doctor he went to, who seemed old enough to be his grandfather.  
“I think I’ll stick with Dr. Payne and torture , to keep it professional.” Louis heard Zayn and Niall snicker in the background and he counted it as a win, even if Harry whacked him in the head for it. Louis saw Liam frown, for only a second before he returned his professional smile.  
“Alright well I think Niall has some forms for your to fill out, that he can help you with, and then when you are done Niall will come let me know.” The young doctor quickly went back into the door he had just emerged from.  
“Always like that is he?” Louis gesturing his head toward the closed door.  
“Mostly, but he just takes what he does seriously.”  
“I can tell! Was he 12 when he graduated university?” Niall missed the question because he was too busy being poked in the side from Harry. He gives a look to Zayn who just rolls his eyes. Louis takes the clipboard from Niall, and starts looking through all the different pages.  
“Erm, yeah, there is no way I am filling all these out.”  
“They need it for the records, Lou, plus it will help you get better.” Zayn said trying to hand Louis a pen.  
“Get better? I’m not exactly sick now I am?”  
“You haven’t slept in days mate, you need to charge naturally, your system could-” Niall tried to explain.  
“My system could, my system could! I know all about what can happen if you let your time run out! Don’t you think I would sleep naturally, if I could? Do you think I actually like having to always bother my friends for hours?” Louis was yelling now, he was angry at his friends for tricking him here, annoyed at the stupid young doctor that was hiding in his office, and overall just plain exhausted from living by borrowed hour to borrowed hour.  
“I’ll fill out your stupid forms, but only if I can sit in his office and bother him about all these dumb questions.” Louis pushed past the blonde and into the doctors office. He found him typing rapidly on his computer. He didn’t look up until Louis loudly slammed the door.  
“oh!” the man shifted in his chair, “Did you finish the forms Niall gave you already? That was fast!” Louis handed him the clipboard and set down in the chair across from Dr. Payne’s desk. The office was small, with no window and not much personalization to it except for an expensive looking Batman action figure and a Woody doll. Louis smirked as he watched the doctor look through the papers.  
“These are still all blank.” the man frowned.  
“Whoa we really do have a boy genius on our hands, tell me doc, when did you graduate university?” The frown on the doctors face got deeper, making his eyebrows crease together, it reminded Louis of a sad puppy.  
“What does that have to do with you not filling out your forms? Now how much time do you got left?” Louis glanced down at his wrist. It blinked at 32 minutes.  
“32 minutes.”  
“Oh thats not nearly enough time to finish all these papers, erm. Set an alarm to go off when you have 15 minutes left would ya?” Dr. Payne asked, getting the papers together. “I’ll just go through the really important documents now, and we can fill out the rest later.”  
“Why do you think that I will do anything you say?”  
“Because, you want to make the dreams stop, don’t you?” the doctor paused looking him in the eyes. Louis froze, blinked and looked down at his wrist . “ Thought so, then lets fill out some of these papers, huh?”  
Louis set a mental alarm to go off 15 minutes before his time runs out, and grabbed a pen from the desk. 

Louis finished the papers quietly, while Liam had gone back to typing on his computer.  
“Um, it says…” Louis stopped, he didn’t know why he had become so nervous in front of this man all of a sudden, maybe it was because the doctor had guessed so quickly and correctly a secret that Louis had never told anyone. Because having dreams meant you were crazy, only 3% of the world suffer from these “dreams” Louis has read reports that some people have dreams about finding love, or that they can fly, but Louis only had a good dream once in his life, when he was much younger. The rest of his dreams have been anything thing but good, often times in the reports they would be called sleep terrors.  
“It says that I need to explain the dreams.” Liam didn’t look up from his computer but nodded and said “ Do your best.”  
“Well, what if I don’t want to explain them, I don’t even like to think about them, much less explain them to a doctor who is probably younger than me, and has very little experience to begin with.” Louis nerves had turned back into anger.  
The doctor looked upset, like he was going to say something but at that moment his 15 minute alarm went off.  
“My alarm is going off.” Louis said triple blinking his eyes to turn it off.  
“Right, okay, well lets get you back to the lab then shall we?” Both men rose from their chairs and moved toward the door. Louis reached it first.  
“I’m sorry about that, about all the yelling and insults.” He looked into the other man’s eyes. “I’m just not used to-” he stopped there, not wanting to over share.  
“Not used to talking about the dreams?” Liam said with a small smile.  
“Yeah.” he sighed  
“Thats okay, you don’t really need to talk about them to me, I’ll see them tonight when you fall asleep.” The doctor opened the door and started to head into the hallway, but Louis was frozen still.  
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Louis started laughing, he was feeling a bit hysteric at the moment, a symptom of only have 14 minutes until you shut down.  
“Did they not explain the process?” Louis shook his head.  
“oh, well. We are going to monitor your sleep pattern, and hook up a device to your brain that projects what you are dreaming about, reports your R.E.M. cycle and your heart rate.It’s all very very safe, I assure you.” As Liam said this he put his hand on Louis shoulder and looked him in the eyes, almost as if to say, its going to be okay. Louis shook him off.  
“Dr. Payne, do you have to see my dreams.”  
“Mr. Tomlinson, I have to understand what is the cause of these dreams, and why you have them.” Louis nodded, not saying anything more because he was getting extremely tired. Louis followed him down the hallway and into a room with a hospital bed in it.  
“Here we are, I’ll leave the room for a moment so you can change into your sleeping clothes and I will be back in a few minutes to help set you up.” Louis hadn't brought any pajamas, and he usually slept in his boxers anyway, but he felt that might be slightly less than professional, so he just took off his shoes, pants and jacket and snuggled into the bed. There was a knock on the door, but before he could reply a pile of pillows and blankets appeared in the doorway, two skinny legs sticking out from below was the only indication that indeed there was a person under it all.  
“Do you want any of these?” Niall’s Irish accent giving him away.  
“Nah, I’m good pillow monster.” Niall threw one at him anyways giggling as he went back out the door. He put the extra pillow behind his head, then behind his back, then took it out completely, how was he supposed to get comfortable in this bed. Another knock on this door, but this time the person waited for Louis to say come in.  
“How are you supposed to get comfortable in these beds?” Louis twisted and turned in the bed trying to make it comfy.  
“Here let me see,” Liam grabbed the remote control from the side of the bed a pressed a few buttons, watching as the bed moved Louis up and down.  
“There is that better?”  
“Actually yeah.”  
“Good, excellent, right. What does your wrist say?”  
“Seven.”  
“Okay I am going to attach a few of these,” Liam held up a small button looking thing, “to your chest and brain, this will allow us to keep track of your heart rate, and your brainwaves. Pull back your hair if you don’t mind.” Liam stuck something cold to both sides of his forehead.”Now look down.” He put another to near the base of his neck. “And if you could lift up your shirt “ Dr.Payne placed the last transmitter on his chest right below his tattoo that read 78 in bold letters. The young doctor smiled reading Louis’s tattoo that ran across the top of his chest.  
“It is what it is. Huh, I wish people I told me that more when I was younger.” This random statement confused Louis for a moment, it was like the doctor was trying to connect to Louis in someway, but he was unsure of as to how.  
“What do you mean by that?” Louis yawned out.  
“I’ll explain when you wake up. Drink this, it will help the transmitter on your head and neck project the images it reads to our screen. I have to warn you-” Louis swallowed the cup of yellow liquid in one go, nearly throwing it back up into the cup, then looking at Liam and pulling a nasty face. “Well, yeah thats what I was going to warn you of, anyway try to relax as best you can, push this button if you need something, and we will be right through that door.”  
Louis moved around in the bed, adjusting the pillows a bit, pulling the blanket all the way up to his neck, he hadn’t realized how cold that room had been. He closed his eyes and after a minute he powered down his system, praying to whomever that he wouldn’t have the dreams. 

Louis couldn’t breath. He opened his eyes and tried to reach out and push the button, but he couldn’t move his arms, his body felt completely paralyzed, even his lungs refusing to work. He opened his mouth to scream for Dr. Payne to come in, for Zayn to wake him up, for Harry to make it stop, but none of them came. His lungs screamed for him to breath, his heart was pounding out of his chest, his brain felt like it was melting. Louis was terrified, screaming with no noise. This paralyzed feeling was only due to not having shut down his system properly in the past week. He focused on breathing, and slowing his heart rate back down. After a while he was able to breath and the paralyzed feeling subsided. 

Louis woke up mid scream, and he was freezing, yet the sheets were covered in sweat. He got out of the bed, his feet hitting the cold ground, he rubbed his eyes until they adjusted to the light around him and tried to catch his breath. Once his heart didn’t feel like it was going to explode, Louis reached across the bed to touch the help button.  
“I think I slept long enough,” he said as Dr. Payne and Niall came in the room,both men looked very sleepy, Niall looked absolutely dead. Louis looked at his wrist, 8 hours and 27 minutes, which translates into 5 hours and 15 minutes of sleep, that was the most real sleep he had gotten in weeks.  
“Louis it’s like 3:30 in the morning dude, go back to sleep.” Niall said pick up a blanket that must have fallen to the ground, and snuggled into it.  
“He is right, we usually like to get eight hours of data on our patients, do you think you could try and get some more sleep?” the tired doctor said, as he took a sip of what looked to be coffee out of his mug.  
“I doubt I will be able too, thats the longest I’ve slept in weeks.” Louis stood up, “Are Harry and Zayn still here?”  
“They left mate, but Zayn said he is gunna pick you up.” Niall mumbled sleepily.  
“They abandoned me!” Louis said dramatically, feeling fully charged and ready to go, even thought it was still the middle of the night.  
“I’m telling you right now, there is no I will be able to go back to sleep tonight.” Louis threw one of his pillows at Niall who had nearly fallen asleep standing up.  
“We can’t let you go home, we need data on you for eight hours. All you have to do is lay in this bed until 6 am, its okay if you can’t sleep, try to sleep, but its alright if you can’t.” Dr. Payne explained as he wrote down notes on his clipboard. “I’m really proud that you slept for that long!”  
“You’re really proud, so great.” Louis said sarcastically, rolling over trying to get comfortable again. Niall walked out yawning and mumbling to himself. The doctor checked one of the monitors in the room before he turned to go. “Did you see them?” the question was quiet, but the doctor heard it.  
“Mr. Tomlinson-”  
“gah, just Louis.”  
“Okay… Louis. Yes we saw parts of them, but we do need you to try and sleep some more tonight so that we can get more information about your sleep pattern. Do you think you could try again mate?”  
“Yeah, I can try again.” Louis rolled over and tried for the next few hours to shut down.


End file.
